Writing Facebook Friends

Writing "Facebook Friends" by bassist Craig Ross

I guess I should credit Lin-Manuel Miranda for my foray into song writing. I've had quite a bit of experience arranging music but I had never to this point made the leap to writing an original song. Hearing Hamilton for the first time blew my mind - the rhythms were propelling the music rather than the usual focus on melody. I spent a lot of time listening to those songs for inspiration.

I decided to start with a beat and found a very cool funk beat as a starting point. I did not know what the song was going to be about, but I knew that I wanted to incorporate this funk groove.

Right around this time, I was getting infuriated by Facebook and social media. Without getting too preachy about it, I felt that people were living one-dimensional lives defined by their "facebook personalities" in which they posted the same type of content over and over.

I wrote the chorus first, taking a swipe at the woman serving as First Lady and her "Be Best" campaign. I used a melodic minor scale, 3 against 2 rhythms and some quirky counterpoint and harmonies to give the chorus an edgy, unhinged feel.

Chorus

My facebook friends, we be best

We love each other, and hate the rest

It's one AM, let's see what's hot

With high school friends, celebrities, and bots

Posting my views - watching shares spike

Hope I will get more than ten thousand likes

Trolling the libs - saving the Earth

We do it all from our bedroom berth

I then decided that each verse needed to represent a tedious, one-dimensional facebook personality. Each line ends with a 3 against 2 rhythm as a snarky response to the beginning of the line. I started with the Narcissist who is always posting selfies and sharing food pics.

Narcissist Verse

Thank you for the birthday wishes - I feel so blessed

To have your thoughts and prayers for the - Death of my pet

See this picture of my dinner - De-li-scious fare

And here’s a glam’rous selfie - Please like my hair

I separate each verse from the chorus with a drum riff that is supposed to represent a person pounding on their keyboard in a social media posting fervor.

In the next verse, I focused on right-wing white nationalists who have poisoned social media with hatred.

Proud boy verse

Look at all these lib’ral snowflakes - I hate them all

If my guy’s not elected - the capital must fall

The stories in my newsfeed - Make me so mad

I grab all my weapons and then - March with my lads

To be fair and balanced, in the next verse I decided to focus on what I call the "rebarbative" liberal who fills facebook with preachy messages about improving the world. While I generally agree with many such messages, I find it infuriating that people waste so much time on social media when they could be out engaging in communities to solve problems.

Rebarbative lib'ral verse

Black lives matter so much to me - I bought a sign

I read this book and now I say - The truth is mine

My friends find me exhausting and - Ask me to pause

I say NO! Sign right here to - Change those bad laws

Finally, in the last verse I decided to focus on Mark Zuckerberg who is laughing all the way to the bank. 

Mark Zuckerberg verse

Facebook wasn’t my idea but - It’s all mine now

Sowing hatred and division is my - Big fat cash cow

Friendships are just bits and bytes that - Make me so rich

Some don’t like it but they can’t stop - Scratching that itch

While I wrote much of this song in 2019, COVID made it impossible for the band to get together to focus on learning this new material. We started putting the song together in January 2022 and then performed it for the first time at a private party in June 2022. Check out my other post with a video of the song's premier.